The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is looking into eliminate toll discounts which are recieved when using Fast Lane along the Massachusetts Turnpike.
Outlook bleak for Pike
Officials postpone major budgeting decisions for two more months
Cutting out the discounts
Turnpike executive director Alan LeBovidge, claiming officials had already pursued $15 million in annualized savings through a variety of reforms and cutbacks, said that the fiscal year could pass without a toll increase if the agency passed the budget he proposed. That blueprint contained a mixture of reserves, cost savings, reduced toll discounts, minimal capital spending, transferred resources between the western and eastern highway systems, additional state assistance, and proceeds from asset sales.
Turnpike Authority officials deferred decisions Thursday on how to crawl out of a deep fiscal pit, postponing talks on toll increases, reserve drawdowns, asset privatizations, terminating all toll discounts, and pleas to the Legislature for more money.
Authorizing a two-month budget to fund operations and maintenance work, the Pike pushed back to September votes on more controversial fiscal choices, which also included the elimination of an accounting barrier between the western and eastern roadway systems.
The two-month budget totaled roughly $59.3 million, including $4.3 million in reserves for capital spending, although officials were unable to provide a bottom line authorization.
“It’s clear that the Turnpike Authority is in a pretty bleak financial situation at this point,” said board chair Bernard Cohen, Gov. Deval Patrick’s transportation secretary.
Meanwhile, engineers who have inspected the Big Dig tunnels for two years gave board members more unwelcome news: Tunnel leaks are likely to stay a fact of Pike life for years.
Gary Klein, the engineer who oversaw a portion of the stem-to-stern safety review, told the board that the initial “zero leak” plan for the tunnels was likely unrealistic, and said that tunnel breaches were probably inevitable.
“This is not over, and you are going to have continual issues with leaks over the next several decades,” Klein said.
The second phase of the “stem to stern” review, led by the Wiss, Janney engineering firm and initiated after a 2006 tunnel collapse claimed a woman’s life, found the tunnels require roughly $100 million over the next five years in repairs due to design or construction deficiencies, according to stem-to-stern director Robert Rooney. That money would come from a trust fund created when contractors settled with prosecutors over flawed work on the project.
